London can be such a lonely place
by Daffidill
Summary: Seven years after the war, Draco lives in Muggle London, and he wants to finally move on, but there's one last issue he needs to face...
1. red red wine

**1. red red wine**

The walk from the station was fairly short, but not short enough to stop doubt from entering my mind again, trying to get me to change what I was about to do. As the tube station disappears form view, I readjust the bag in my right hand with the bottle of red wine in it. My peace offering. Thoughts niggling away there, I walk past a parade of shops, then an ugly bridge over the busy main road, then more houses, and the street where I'm supposed to go to should be coming up soon, while thoughts of chickening out become annoyingly loud, telling me that I still have time to change my mind, that I could still just do my Saturday shopping in the Tesco's that I'd wandered past, and take the next tube train back to my neck of the woods and resume life the way I'd gotten used to in the last few years. Not to have it disrupted again, with a meeting between myself and the man that had so long been at the heart of so many of my problems, back in the 'old days'. Now that I had my life in some sort of balance, after the years of struggling to make sense of it all. But I had to do this, I had to at least say thanks, for what he'd done, and maybe, maybe move on.

The street I walk in now is pleasant, green from the trees that line it, the houses not very grand, Victorian, in different shades of white plaster and yellow brick, just cosy, for small families or couples who work in the city, and the cars that are parked say the same – either family-sized with all the kid-based paraphernalia cluttering the back seats, or small-ish, neat ones that are probably used to do the shopping with. As opposed to the trucks that I see on a daily basis in the road where my flat is. I have no idea how people manage to drive those things down the busy roads of inner London and not get into massive trouble every time, feel grateful for taxis and the London Underground… The number of the house I need to get to is approaching fast, and with each step my heart seems to pound that bit harder. By the time I reach the blue front door, I feel it's beating so loud that I'm sure the entire world can see it. As I raise my hand to press the doorbell, it's shaking, and I almost decide to do an about-turn, when I press the button involuntarily, as if something beyond my control has taken over. Still a bit freaked I step back, out of the small porch, ready to run, when I see a figure appear in the frosted window of the door, and I freeze. What am I thinking?! Why couldn't I just send him an email, like normal people do?! Why a meeting? What good will this do?! But it's too late to do anything about it, because the door has been opened and a young man with mad black hair has just appeared and looks me up and down, trying to place what he knows me from. Then I see that the penny has dropped.

'Malfoy…' says Harry James Potter, with an audible air of tired astonishment. 'Hi… What do _you_ want…'

The last was said more wearily then annoyed, which gives me hope, if only slightly so. The bottle of vintage wine that I'd been carrying with me feels heavy, and I hold it up to him, hoping to dissuade his mood and cheer him up. It helps: now he looks startled, which is better than the tiredness that oozed from his eyes before.

'Hi Harry,' I make myself say. 'I was hoping to find you in… I, uh. I still never thanked you for rescuing me from the Room of Requirements, now nearly seven years ago, you saved my life, and it's the one thing I haven't been able to deal with, and it's been eating away at me for all that time. And now I feel the time is right to put all that behind us, or have closure or whatever, and I was hoping that I could speak to you…' The words rambled out of my mouth uncontrollably, and I would've been fine with Harry slamming the door on me, being convinced the last seven years had rendered me nuts, but he didn't, he just gave me a friendly, confused smile, stepped aside and told me to come in.

It has taken me a lot of work to get where I am now, since the madness of the last year in Hogwarts, when things went completely crazy, and I felt I'd lost everything I understood, all that I was made to believe in for so many years, and then, as if that wasn't enough, making the break with my parents, who weren't much pleased with the fact that their only son had no intention to find a female partner ('not my area', I told my mother when she was fishing for possible candidates I might be interested in. Her obvious disappointment was nothing compared to my father's, though…) to carry on the family line, and the inheritance I got from an old auntie on my father's side (disputed heavily by him, to no avail) that I'm living on still tides me over, having made it possible to buy a lovely top floor flat near Regent's Park, and plenty of therapy… It wasn't until I discovered my inner strength in an ashram for wizards (my mind was blown away when I discovered this existed!) in India, where I stayed for a few months needing to run away from it all (since chickening out is really my natural way of reacting to difficult situations) that I managed to move on from the indoctrination and conditioning that I had received for so many years, and many things became clear, the main one being that I needed to talk to Harry about our, how do I say this, prolonged dispute…

Harry's house is nice, though very cluttered, but it's oozing a kind of pleasant friendliness, with all the wood and orange walls and many plants and books and photos of strangely familiar faces – I see Granger staring back at me from the wall in the hall, as well as the Weasel, and Luna Lovegood who's dwarfed by Hagrid the enormous groundskeeper as they stand in front of his ramshackle excuse for a house, and some others that I haven't thought about for years. Harry beckons me to follow him to the kitchen, where a pretty chaotic mess stares at me from the table and worktop. And somehow this does not really surprise me. Harry never struck me as tidy… He should see my place…

'Tea?' I hear, and I nod. He flicks on the kettle, and goes to find a few mugs in the sink, gives them a quick wash and sets them upside down on the draining board. 'Sorry about the mess, but I haven't had much time to clear up… Well, I say time, I mean I haven't felt like it, since…' A deep sigh escapes him, and he rakes a hand through his wild hair, nervously, 'Anyway: why didn't you ring first? You're familiar with phones by now, I assume? Ron said that you live up near Lord's – he goes to see the cricket there with his dad, since they discovered it, a few years back… ' I'm shocked at the low tone of his voice, and when I inspect his appearance, I'm struck by how scruffy he looks, well, even more so than how I remember him from Hogwarts. His shirt hasn't seen an iron, his trousers could do with a wash, and he hasn't shaved for a while. Dark stubble marks his jaws, which gives him not so much a smouldering look – he hasn't got the posture to carry that off - as it does the appearance of a gloominess that awakens a kind of concern in me, suddenly. A weird kind of caring instinct…

'Yeah, I do, right near the Park… Nice out there… And yes, I do have a phone, and a pc, and was thinking of sending you an email first, to be on the safe side… But I wanted to see you in person, I suppose… To see how you're doing now, and to tell you how grateful I still feel, without the risk of you turning me away by way of computer…'

Harry smiles at me, then does a silly 'tadaa!' movement, as if to say: _well here I am, don't I look splendid_… and nods at the bottle of wine that he's found a spot for on the table, next a weeks' worth of newspaper and a breakfast bowl with the remnants of cornflakes inside it. 'Well, thanks for that bottle… must've set you back a few bob… What do you do for a living now?'

I smile back, receive the thanks and raise my shoulders, not really knowing how to answer his question. 'Live of the money from my dad's oldest sister… I do some work for the Ministry, studying potions that have been discovered recently, or haven't been registered by Professor Snape, before he... And I write the odd piece for the Gazette. And attempt to get my book published, but my father is doing his best to thwart my efforts, so that's not working out so well…'

'Ah, the same old Lucius up to his old tricks… Is your mum not able to help you out?'

I love the way Harry assumes that your mother would just be on your side, just because she's your mother… I'd love to help him out of that dream, but I'm trying to keep things light for now, so I smile a wry smile and shake my head. 'Nah… I'm fine without them, really… I do see my mother sometimes, but only for a meal out… And yourself?'

Harry sniffs, then takes a deep breath and puffs his cheeks. 'Umm… part time auror, part time teacher at Hogwarts - I'm still training to teach Charms and Transfiguration, but I've taken some time out... Oh, and part time screw up… I've split up from Ginny last month, she was fed up with my sulks, and I can't blame her… She's very caring and sweet, but even I was getting fed up with my moodies… Poor girl…'

'Ah, also not suffering at all from the aftermath of… you know… the war… God, we should be on some sort of Wizard Rehabilitation Program, us lot…' I say, half joking, half bitterly serious.

In front of me, Harry fumbles with a tea cloth that he would be using to dry out the mugs he'd cleaned earlier on, and I see how far away his thoughts have drifted. He too must be having the odd nightmare about the battle at Hogwarts, he too will probably still be mourning the loss of friends, although they won't be the same friends, but still…

'Harry, just a hunch here, but would you like to have dinner with me tonight? As long as you haven't got anything else to do… I just thought… I know a nice place near where I live, and maybe we could… I don't know, put the past behind us, once and for all… Move on…'

The man in front of me looks up, snapped out of his dreaming, and smiles.

'Well, that sounds nice. Maybe I should… Oh, I don't know if that would be… I.. Oh, well… Okay then…'

I leave his house feeling strangely high, delighted to be seeing Harry later this evening, having told him I would send a cab around for half six.

*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*

I don't think I've been as nervous as I was while waiting for Harry to arrive. The taxi was late, as Harry was held back by a visit from Weasley, he said, who was in tears after a domestic with Granger, and by eight o'clock I was convinced that he wasn't coming after all. But he was, and I felt as excited as I expect muggle kids are waiting for Father Christmas each year, when I finally saw his familiar features walk through the door. He scrubbed up very nicely, had put on a fresh pair of jeans and a mauve shirt, and a shaved Harry looked gorgeous…

God!

All of a sudden I realised that I found myself having _feelings _for the guy I had been loathing for years at school, then admiring for his kind heart, and ending up feeling fairly indifferent towards, but found that indifference fading fast when he opened the door to me this afternoon. For years I had been pestering Pansy with my cod psycho-babble ('_if you're that rotten to the guy, you must fancy him to pieces_…') and I'm surprised to think that she hadn't thrown my 'knowledge' right back into my face, cos the amount of grief I've given Harry over the years should mean I've been wanting to get inside his pants pretty desperately… Now, I was breathing butterflies out of my stomach… But hey, I am a practitioner of Inner Wisdom, and surely I was above all that silly earthly nonsense?! I had lived in an ashram for months, I knew how to sidestep temptation. Harry was small beer compared to the guys I've managed to pay no attention to in the last two years…

To little avail… The longer the evening went on, the more I wanted to touch him, hold his hand, stroke his face… Me?! Draco Malfoy?! Cold fish, intellectual, deep thinker (yes, I've developed on from the air head idiot I was in my teens… Death and betrayal in the ways I've seen will do a lot to bring out the serious side of a person, even if they are the heir of Slytherin…) But the things he told me, the Harry I was slowly getting to know, was becoming more and more endearing to me, more and more alluring. He was finding himself becoming intrigued by eastern philosophies, he said… He'd travelled to other Wizard communities, which he liked very much, he said… He was single, he said… He liked guys too, he said… More, actually – now why would he say that?

We've left the restaurant by now, are walking towards Regent's Park, as it's still a bit light and we haven't finished talking yet.

'Nice out here,' Harry gleams, while walking into the park. 'I can see why you're spending all that cash on a place here… So pretty here… A nice pond… I like to walk by the river after a hard day, or in the morning, if I have a day off… So lovely there now, that it's been done up. You should come and have a look one day…' he glances sideways as he says it, to catch my reaction, and I smile encouragingly.

'That'd be nice,'

We walk on, looking at how the sun goes down behind the trees, all pink and orange clouds around it, and I feel happy, for the first time in ages. Just happy… We walk back out of the park, wary of attracting the wrong kind of attention, and as we get near my street, I can hear a moped making its way along the street, which is quite narrow, and as I want to look around to see how far away it is, I see it catch Harry and knock him over. The guy riding the moped stops for a second, looks around to check the damage he'd caused, and sprints off again. There was just enough time for me to see which pizza delivery service he works for, but my attention goes to Harry, who's lying knocked out on the floor… And is that blood coming from his head…?

- to be continued -

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* reviews greatly appreciated! * thanx for reading *


	2. pennyroyal tea

**2. penny royal tea**

'Potter! Potter, wake up...' I give him a nudge, after I've made the third walk form my bedroom to the guest bedroom, in which my former school-mate/arch enemy has taken residence for at least this night, and I've promised the doctor on call that I would look after him, seen as he'd lost his memory and I couldn't think of who else would look after him.

The knock Harry got from the moped running him over was not as severe as I feared. He had a bump the size of a golf ball on the back of his head, and he had no recollection of what had happened to him or who was his next of kin, but there was no blood of any kind (the puddle he fell into was a left over from the rain storm we had the day before, and the darkness made it look far more severe) or nausea, and the paramedics that arrived on the scene were there so quickly that I suspected magic (nothing to do with me…); they took him to the nearest hospital where he got seen to remarkably swiftly, and considering the stories I've heard of waiting lists and other scary things that muggles put up with (god, I miss St. Mungo's sometimes… Where is Madame Pomfrey when you need her?! Actually, maybe I should've taken Harry there… Hm…) I dreaded hours of waiting and endless cups of coffee, smelly waiting areas and was pleasantly stunned at the speed at which we left. As it was, the lovely doctor on call (very dishy…) diagnosed a concussion, had an x-ray taken to make sure nothing more frightening was going on, and then sent us on our way, presuming we were together (his exact words: '_Your boyfriend will live, sir, just make sure you wake him every hour to see he's not in a coma, then leave him in peace for a few days and contact me when you suspect anything is wrong…_' The word 'boyfriend' sounded pretty weird to me, as I've had nothing of the sort for three years now…). I got us a taxi back to my place and made the spare bedroom ready for my unexpected guest, helped him out of his clothes and into one of my t-shirts and pyjama bottoms, then set the alarm function on my phone to the next hour and waited until Harry fell into a sound, quiet sleep. Looking adorable, I might add…

Harry glances up to me, blinking a few times, trying to work out why he's here and then glares at me.

'Malfoy?' he mumbles, all of a sudden aware of the room he's in not being his own, or in a hospital. 'Why am I here?' He lifts his head a little, then feels the pain and lies down again.

I move to sit next to him and make sure he's okay. 'You had a pretty nasty knock earlier this evening… I've taken you back to my place from the hospital, cos you need someone to keep an eye on you and I couldn't think who else to call for you… You only just remembered who I am…'

'Oh… Sorry about that… I don't want to put you into any… ouch… trouble... God my head hurts…' he makes a move to feel the golf ball on his head. 'Jesus, what the hell is this?!'

'The main reason why you're here. I'm having to make sure that you're not starting to talk complete nonsense, or make incoherent movements – I have the list from the doctor guy in my jacket pocket somewhere – and I have to wake you up every hour until morning… This is the third time I've found you alive and well.'

'Okay… Thanks…' and he drifts back off to sleep once more.

My bed beckons and I glance at Harry who's snoring lightly. It takes a while to catch sleep again, but it comes and before long my phone indicates another hour has passed. I'm pretty groggy now, and I stumble to the spare room, poke Harry a few times, wait for him to open his eyes and say 'Hi' and turn to go back to my bed, when the strangest thing happens... Harry speaks to me:

'Why don't you come in with me?'

It takes a while before the penny drops. Come in with him? What's he on about? Is this the drivel that the dishy doc was talking about? Should I ring 999 right now?

'You know, you have to do this god knows how many more times, and I'm feeling a bit silly having you traipse from your room to this one cos I fell over'- he's pretty coherent it you ask me, although fairly drowsy – 'and the bed is enormous…'

'No, I'll be alright, Potter… You go back to sleep…' I answer him, though the idea of crashing out on the bed with him is getting more tempting as the seconds roll on.

'Well, I really don't mind,' he whispers, and smiles and pulls the duvet open to make the decision even easier for me. I look at the phone in my hand, and then at the vast empty space that is the spare bed, but level-headed-ness takes over, and I trot back to my own bed, fully convinced that I did the right thing… I mean, we've only just gotten to know each other again, and even then just the stuff on the surface. I don't even know who I should've rung, had he been completely opposed to being in the same house with me – something I'd entirely understand… This time yesterday I didn't even know that his eyes were green, or that he has beautiful hands, or that he pushes his glasses up with the middle finger of his left hand, when his right hand is his dominant one… Or that he sniggers in this really sweet way, which makes his eyes go all scrunched up and gives him dimples in his cheeks… Or that he looks like an angel when he's deeply asleep… Images of the Harry that I've got to know in the last 18 hours fight for the spotlight, and the hour that I should be sleeping is taken up with thoughts of how lovely I think Harry bloody Potter actually is, taking Lord Voldermort and most of our time in Hogwarts out of the equation… Fourteen years in total, and most of that I've spent thinking he wasn't worthy of my time, that he was either the enemy or an idiot, or a wuss, with him rescuing me from certain death as an exception, which sort of put him into another category – Not Quite Sure What To Make Of Him – when it hasn't taken me any time to replace those conclusions from before…

My alarm goes off with a shrill noise, and I stumble out the bed, off to the other end of my flat (why did I think this was a great idea?) and jab my guest in the arm. He looks up at me again and pulls the duvet open like he did earlier, adding the words 'We're both adults, Malfoy…' to the invite, and I give in. Making sure we're not touching, I pull the duvet over me and fall into a blissful sleep.

The next time I wake up is when the sun shines into the bedroom and warms me by shining right into my face. I also feel an arm trapping me to my spot, and a slow breath tickling my neck.

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

For minutes now I've been sitting on one of the chairs in my kitchen, staring into nothing, trying to figure out what just happened in the bedroom… Harry's arm was wrapped tightly around me, his body warm against mine, his breath slowly arousing feelings in me that I've not been wanting to deal with for three years or so – for _anybody_, not just Harry. But it being Harry makes it even more of a conundrum for me… Had it been anybody else I might have given into the feelings that came up, instinctively, just because I could (relieved a kind of tension, I suppose…), but for starters, this was Harry frigging Potter, whom I've had more issues with than anybody else in my life (bar my father, but I'm not going there…), and furthermore: he's in my spare bedroom with a concussion… Even I'm not that much of a bastard… I managed to sneak out of his grip – fairly aroused – with him stirring slightly, mumbling something incomprehensible, giving me the proof he wasn't in a coma, and slipped into the shower to deal with my… um… problem. Then I had a quick look inside his room, to make sure he was still there, and see if he wanted anything, but he was still sound asleep, snoring ever so slightly. I then moved on to the kitchen to make some tea, but the kettle has boiled minutes ago, and I'm sure I'll switch it back on in a moment, if I could stop myself from wondering why I'm now feeling so thoroughly freaked… No idea how long it's been – it could be minutes, it could be hours…

'Any chance of a cuppa…?' I hear behind me suddenly. A pale young man with mad black hair stands in the doorway of my kitchen, shocks me out of my thoughts. I look around to see he's leaning against the doorframe. "Oh, and you couldn't tell me where the bathroom is, could you? I'm bursting…'

'Um, yeah, let me show you…' He follows me along the hallway and I wait outside for him to come back out, slightly worried that he might have a seizure in my house. We then walk back to the kitchen where I finally make the tea, and try to make sure I look entirely in control of my faculties. 'How are you feeling now?' I ask him, while not looking at his face.

'Well, apart from the headache, I'm not feeling too bad… What actually happened?' Harry rubs his face a little.

I tell him in short why he's now in my flat, while I get the tea ready and carry it out to the living room. Harry follows me there and sits next to me, leaning lightly against the raised side. He's not looking very well, a bit white, but he seems perky enough. I pour him a cup and ask whether he wants some milk in it, and hand him the mug, which he takes, giving me a sweet smile, which makes me feel strange, in quite the same way as when I found his arm around me this morning. I sit back in the sofa with my own cup, and think of something to ask him.

'Will nobody miss you today?' I attempt, while I want to cool my tea down by looking at it.

'No idea… Haven't made any plans… Although, I should probably ring Mrs Weasley, I said I might to go round there later today for dinner, if I had nothing else to do…' he says, trying to keep his eyes open. 'Wouldn't mind too much if I don't have to talk to Ginny now, though… Still feeling a bit horrible about what happened…'

'What did actually happen?' I ask him, thankful for the open door. He never explained why they broke up. They were the Golden Couple in the wizard world for years, especially after the War, when everyone needed things to cheer themselves up with.

'Too much, really… I don't know if you really want to know all this' I nod at him encouragingly. 'Um… Where do I start… In short: I suppose I never had the guts to tell her I wasn't in love with her… I liked her, still do, but in a _just friends_ kind of way… And with all that had happened, I suppose it was just nice to have someone there who liked to look after me, who wanted to comfort me out of my nightmares… It was never a very passionate relationship, not on my part anyway… I tried, thought it was the trauma of seven years fighting Voldermort, that it had strained me so much that… But I never had any trouble feeling passionate about certain guys I played Quidditch with, making the showers afterwards rather awkward…' Harry blushed at that last bit. He smiled at me, nervously.

'I understand…' slips out of my mouth before I can sanction it, but it gets an amusing look from my guest, so I decide a smile is okay.

'You understand? Are you… Nooo…' he giggles, which makes him seem boy-ish, getting my pulse up by a few beats per minute. 'The Heir of Slytherin, gay? Wahaa! I bet your dad wasn't too happy about that…'

'Not really, no…' I make a face that tells Harry he just made the understatement of the year.

'Oh, sorry… Didn't mean to make you… Well, at least you've come out, then? I'm still blaming it on stress and trauma… Makes you far less of a coward then me…'

We smile at each other, relieved that this thing is cleared up and not too much of a problem. In theory… Harry slides down in the sofa a bit more, making himself comfortable against the corner where he's sitting, so I reach for the blanket that I normally use in winter when I watch films, sitting on that exact same spot, and put it over him. He gives me a quick look. 'Thankx, Malfoy…'

'Please call me Draco…'

'…'kay…' he answers drowsily and drifts off into a calm sleep, tucking his feet under my leg a tad as he gets as comfortable as he can. I'm left to sit there with a book and do my best to get into it, but it's proving difficult, with Harry snoring next to me…

*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*

'When you came round to my house yesterday – was it yesterday? – to say that you needed to thank me for rescuing you, I was pretty astonished to be honest, Draco,' I hear next to me after an hour or so. I never got past the page I started on in the book, instead fell sleep myself for a while. The broken night had taken its toll. Harry's words throw me a bit.

'How do you mean?'

'Well, to start with, I don't think _I've_ ever thanked _you_ for not given me away to that barmy Bellatrix woman back at your house, when you could've so easily done so and gotten a million brownie points with your dad and Voldermort… And anyway – why you hadn't destroyed me before, after I hexed you nearly to death with that stupid curse form Snape… I still don't know what possessed me… It was all so mad then, so incredibly mad… Sometimes I think back on those days, and I think… It's so… You know…'

'I know…' I say and touch his hand, which is on his leg, and he grabs mine, almost urgently, squeezes it, as if it'll give him a lifeline of some sort. I completely understand what he means, I think that myself sometimes, what the hell was going on back then? In the relative calm and ease of life now, with no threats of death and doom, with walks in the park, and films in the cinema, meals out with friends – nothing like my, our, formative years at Hogwarts… It all seems so long ago now… So very far away.

'I know you know… Do you ever speak to anyone about those days?' Harry won't let go of my hand, and I'm fine with that.

'Nah… Just my therapist. And she's convinced I'm doing okay now. But what does she know? She was out in cosy Sweden, studying to be a Wizard Analyst when we were going through hell and back…'

Harry pulls himself up, still holding my hand, and sits really quite close to me now. He puts his other hand on top of the one that's holding his, and puts his head on my shoulder, something that sends all sorts of feelings pulsing through my body.

'Are you okay?' he asks, while staying where he is.

'Um…'

'You don't need a therapist, Draco Malfoy, you need someone to love you…' and with that I feel him kiss me on the side of my neck, so gently that I could be mistaken, but he does it again, and I feel a warmth rise from my gut all the way up, making it seem that I'm on fire. I let out a little noise that makes Harry laugh, and he settles his head back on my shoulder.

'I think I've always been in love with you, Harry…' I whisper as quietly as I can, but my audience has perfect hearing, and he lifts his head up quickly, regrets this as a searing pain makes it clear that he's not quite healed yet, then lifts my hand to his mouth and presses another kiss on it. 'Deep down… I could never hurt you, cos… You were everything I wished I had in my life… What you and Weasley and Granger had, I never had that… All I had was pride and tradition and hate… I was so jealous, but in the end, when it came to it, I couldn't hurt you…'

And then I hear him snore again, while holding my hand for dear life, our fingers laced together, the promise of slightly better things to come, if he ever wakes up form this…

- to be continued -

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* thanks for reading... * reviews very welcome! *


	3. flower power

**3. flower power**

And so it appeared that my declaration of love to the Boy Who Lived caused him to collapse in a coma... That's encouraging.

An hour or two back I apparated us to St. Mungo's (which I should've done in the first place… bloody Muggles…) and Harry is now in the great care of Madam Brigland, whom I insisted should be looking at this case immediately (as she's the best Healer I know of, and the name Malfoy still holds a tiny bit of sway, I noticed…). She had to be taken off another case, for which I felt remotely guilty, but when I glance at Harry sleeping calmly, with a peaceful look on his face, I feel I've done the right thing.

A while ago I've sent an owl to tell Mrs Weasley that her dear ex-son-in-law would not be having dinner with them, as he was in hospital with a concussion, and fairly quickly I received a note back, which I'm now holding in my hand.

'_why didn't you tell me sooner?! I'm on my way now… __tell Harry__… _(scribbled out_) thanks for looking after him so far… Molly Weasley'_

Oh, great… I shall be _relieved_ of my duties in a bit, when that batty woman elbows her way into the time I've been spending with my Ha… with Potter… Damn… Why did I tell her?!

I take a seat in the chair next to his bed, and take his hand, without really thinking about it. He feels warm, as before, when he was lying on my sofa, with the knitted woollen rug over him, or when he was in the spare bed, with his arm wrapped around… Hum… Not a good road to go down… Not here. I lace my fingers through his, and close mine around his hand, which causes a slight stirring with Harry. Madam Brigland had told me that he might react to certain stimuli, touch being the strongest, and that it wouldn't necessarily mean the he'd be virtually cured, but that it's a good sign. So I smile, and carry on sitting with him, hand in hand, stroking his arm, noting small, almost unnoticeable reactions, and feel happy…

Which is weird… Cause the last time I was happy like this (before yesterday afternoon), was when I had a short-lived but intense relationship with a guy I'd got to know when I lived in a small wizard community in Cornwall, after I came back from India. Gabriel ran a local grown food shop/lunch room/gallery in the village, which did a fantastic trade in summer, but was fairly quiet in January, when I arrived, and that gave him loads of time to paint and sculpt and potter (…) and do what he loved doing most. He was a good few years older than me, had greying, curly hair that flopped about as he moved, and I fell immediately for his good looks and laidback, strong demeanour. I moved in with him after three days and helped him out in the shop, and I was in love so much that it scared me… He reciprocated my feelings, until late summer, when something happened – I have no idea what – and I found myself living with a narky, distant, testy man, who couldn't find a way of telling me that he'd had enough of 'us'… So I left, came to London to escape the wizard world for a while, and found I was okay with being anonymous, stayed longer that I intended, ignored any feeling of unhappiness and sadness connected to Gabriel, until a few months back, when I couldn't anymore, cried for days, and then Harry Potter kept coming back into my mind.

'Mr Malfoy?' an uncertain voice snaps me out of my thoughts, and when I look around I see Mrs Weasley and her daughter standing next to me, looks darting from my face to my hands, which are still holding Harry's. I let go straight away, and stand up to shake Mrs Weasley's hand.

'Oooh, that feels nice and warm… You must be doing some magic to Harry there… Has he been awake yet?' she smiles at me, kindly, as I've seen her do on many occasions, just never directed to me.

'No, not yet… Well, not this time… He was okay when I took him back from hospital last night, and then I stayed with him to check, see if he'd wake up and all that, and then we talked, and drank tea, and listened to some music… and then he just seemed to go away…' I notice that my voice breaks a little when I say that last bit, and Mrs W puts her hand on mine for a moment. It feels oddly nice.

'It's a good thing you've done there, Mr Malfoy… Staying with him, making sure he's okay… Taking him here – I heard you got Madam Brigland to tend to him… Good… Nice… Here Ginny, put this next to his bed…' she hands a small blue bottle to her daughter, who takes it and places it on the bedside table, then screws the top off, and the most beautiful flowery smells and shapes appear from it, dancing gently around Harry's head, and just like when he did when I touched him, he makes a small movement, as if to acknowledge the sensation. 'Are you two…? You're not together, are you? I mean, how comes that he was with you when it happened? You weren't fighting, were you? Please tell me that that's all over now…'

I smile, then shake my head, and explain to her what happened, looking at Ginny every now and then, noting her discomfort when I mentioned his reaction to my touches, and decide to leave it at that. 'I'll be off then, leave you to it… I'm sure Harry will be delighted when he sees you here, you being so much better at caring than I ever will be…'

"Oh no, Mr Malfoy, you've done a splendid job so far, don't run yourself down like that…' Mrs W attempts to make me feel less awkward, but I can see her thoughts are with Harry, and so I set off, thanking them again for coming here, and leave to go to my place. I take one last look at Harry, who's being tended to like a prince, reason away the pang of jealousy I feel, then make my way back to my flat. Alone once more…

*o*o*o*o*o*o*

I´m back in an empty flat. It´s the exact same flat, of course, but having had Harry there, having had chats together, someone to come back for after I nipped out to the shops to get some stuff for lunch, it opened my eyes to just how empty my flat really is… London is such a bloody lonely place right now…

'_You need someone to love you_…' Harry had said, and that hit home so much more than any of what my therapist ever came up with. She just kept going on about letting go of anger and finding places of peace, as if it was that simple, or even achievable. The love that Harry talked about (and showed me) was so much more attractive, and I knew full well that in the end it was my own journey, that whatever Harry might offer me in the way of love and affection would be a nice bonus, but just the thought that there was someone out there that _loved_ me, was so thrilling… And then he went and had a bloody coma…

With my knowledge of the human body – paid attention in _that_ class – I'm guessing that the declaration of my feelings of love for him, or at least what I thought was love, or lust or attraction (I was 17 at the time i referred to…), caused him to have a rush of blood to his head, which was too much to cope with for his knocked about system. Sounds pretty plausible to me. But if it caused him to react like that, would that mean then that he was _excited_ about it? Or _angry_? I mean, had it meant nothing to him, it would've left him cold, indifferent… Right? Hm…

*o*o*o*o*o*o*

Thirteen days have gone, and I've thrown myself into my work, just as I did after Gabriel. I spend long hours trying to decipher notes and work out the subtle differences between x-amounts of grubbleweeds, and the benefits in combination with carbuncular drooblebugs… Thrilling, I can tell you… My colleagues (I have five, all dour, serious men, and one woman) feel slightly sorry for me, but appear also very glad that I'm getting so much work done. Saves them the trouble…

The box by my front door helps me to divert my brain from work, but not until I nearly trip over it. It's big, with a green ribbon around it, and it's got a bow on top, and my name, and a slight flapping noise comes from inside. Confused and on my guard I take it inside, where I put it on the table in the kitchen. Now I notice, apart from the flapping, some high pitched giggles. I get a knife from the drawer and carefully slice the ribbon, so that it falls off and reveals the flapping, giggling things inside, which turn out to be Pixies, in many different colours, holding up a banner, which reads: '_Draco Malfoy, you're a lovely man and I would like to thank you for the care you've given me last weekend… Please meet me near the riverside café (pixie with the purple hair has got the directions) (I hope…) tonight at 8. {heart} _ _HP_'

Dumbstruck I take a seat on one of the chairs, and take the piece of parchment that the purple haired pixie gives me, but am too confused to look at it. Confused, and excited. The other pixies are helping themselves to food in my cupboards, I hear in the distance. Harry has sent me an invite to a thank-you… well what… drink? Dinner? Coffee? He signed it with a heart… A heart?! Isn't that what lovesick teenage girls do? Or what I did once to Gabriel, who laughed at my silly display of affection… The heart on the piece of paper – now on the table, discarded by the pixies – moves a little, as if to mimic the throbbing movement real hearts make. Never knew that was possible… I glance at the clock, which says I have 18 minutes before its eight.

*o*o*o*o*o*

The sun shines like it's the middle of the day still. The riverside is full of folks having picnics and walks and lounging lazily on blankets, staring at the water, or the trees overhead. I spot Harry by a jetty, where he's holding an ore which keeps a boat in place, and he waves as he sees me. I try to wander casually towards him, which is hard when my heart pounds like a maniac and I feel like grinning insanely, but I think I've pulled it off when I reach the jetty. We greet slightly awkwardly – what do you do when you've been near snogging but got cut off by a health scare? Harry grabs my hand and kisses it. "Draco…' he whispers, which sends shivers down my everything… That's good enough…

'Care for a picnic on the river?' he asks me. I nod. My voice has gone on holiday. He helps me inside the boat, and we try to figure out where to sit (well I do, he just stays where he is, sat on the bench, and waits for me to decide what to do. I take the plunge and sit next to him) and off we go. He rows us out to a quiet bit, where the hubbub of London seems to just die away, and we're alone again.

'You look good,' I tell him. It's true: he looks wonderful. Beaming, glowing, happy. Not peaky like he did last week, but healthy. And gorgeous.

'Thanks… Molly and Ginny made a right fuss over me… Drove me mad in the end… I told them to go, that I could cope on my own, but they just didn't believe me… I had to get Ron and his dad to convince them that I was alright…' he grins.

'No side effects? Head-aches, woozy? No? Great… I was really worried when you went out in my place… Worried I killed you…' which is the truth.

'Well, you shouldn't tell stuff like that to frail people like me… Too much exhilaration… You _could've_ killed me, you know…' Harry laughs when he says it, but I have trouble joining him.

'I know…' I say, quietly. But before I have the chance to go into that thought, I feel his hand on mine again. I look sideways, see his face close to mine, those beautiful green eyes staring back at me, full of longing, and I panic, slightly. Then I feel his lips on mine, as they gently caress. He feels soft and lovely, and as he moves away, I move with him slightly, eager to keep the kiss going. So he moves back in, giving me a light feeling in my head, and when I taste his tongue on my lips, I moan with delight… I let him in, eager, and ready for much more… His hands are now on my neck, warm and gentle, moving up to my face, play with my hair slightly, and Jesus I'm so bloody excited now… And this is only from a kiss…! I break off this wonderful thing that we have, cos I'm sure I can't stop myself if I let him kiss me any longer. We breathe like we've just run 5 miles, and smile at each other, grinning stupidly.

'That was nice…' Harry pants quietly, his forehead touching mine.

'Yeah…' I answer, sounding silky and deep, desperately trying to stop myself from having him on the boat, in full view (potentially) of the riverside.

'Come back to my place… Please…' Harry pleads, and this doesn't fall on deaf ears: within seconds we're within the safe walls of his place. In his bedroom to be precise… Harry is good at apparating…

*o*o*o*o*o*o*

In his bed… In his arms… In a right state…

Harry snores a little, must've dozed off in the time that we've been lying here, coming to terms with the way things have changed in the last hours. My stomach does idiotic flutters, his does too – we never had that picnic. Or is it butterflies, taking over the reins?

Half an hour ago I told Harry Potter that I loved him… Mind you, I was on the verge of a wonderful climax, caused by him, so it was fairly easy to go there. But I meant it. And he said he loved me, at approximately the same point in proceedings with me in the 'driving seat'… Harry Loves Draco... Draco Loves Harry… That'll look good in a tree, somewhere…

I guess London will not be such a lonely place any more…


End file.
